Some of my best friends cannot stand Donald Trump but voted for him only because of the power the POTUS wields when it comes to the federal judiciary. So far, they've not been disappointed.

I can't fault Grassley's indulgence entirely, since the GOP has such a slim, unreliable majority - he HAS to tap dance for the benefit of Flake, Corker, Collins and Murkowski or else there aren't enough votes to confirm Kavanaugh. The delay of a few days has allowed time for the accuser's OWN WITNESSES to refute her claims. Delicious!

The fact that Democrats had another dubious claimant come forth just as Ford's claims crumbled only succeeded in proving how craven and sleazy their game plan is. I may be wrong, but I suspect the Democrats are performing a GOTV service for the Republican Party by reminding hitherto complacent voters just how much is still at stake. This has been a blaring wake-up call if ever there was one.

To the right of me - spineless, cowardly Republicans.
To the left of me - anti-American socialist Democrats.
If Kavanaugh is not appointed, there will be many Republican FORMER office holders.
A shame that Grassley (Feinstein's bitch) can't be one of them.

Sir, That is an excellent SITREP. Nothing to add. We now wait and see how it shakes out.

There sure is a lot of anger out there. The Kavanaugh situation is just a symptom of the partisanship tearing America apart. Both the left and the right consider themselves aggrieved and thus justified in their anger. We have some elections coming in less than 2 months. This should provide some clarity in what most Americans want. I suspect the Democrats will take back the House but the Senate probably will be evenly divided. Is that not how Democracy should work?

I know many of your will argue that we are a Republic and majority opinion in America as a whole is irrelevant. That being the case maybe Americas has gotten too big for its britches. Would it not be better for an amiable Divorce where Red states and Blue states can build their own countries and see how things shake out for their respective peoples.

This is a FEDERAL republic. A unitary republic like France is equally possible. If you are thinking of an "amicable divorce," you need to look at election results by county. To get any kind of uniformity of political opinion it would be necessary to divide many of the states. These would include California and New York.

Pat - I was merely being practical when I suggested state divisions. Chopping up America into really small county divisions would yield entities that are too small to be self-supporting along with transportation issues of crossing boundries. Perhaps some of the big states could be split into a few new entitties and still be economically feasible. I would hate to see this but I have no answer to the anger which seems to be roiling the country.

I am still stunned to see that each side of our political divide seem to think they have the only true answers to our issues and the other side are idiots.

Obviously the country cannot be divided by counties. My point was that if you look at NY state for example you will find that most of the state is red.

Yes but most of the population in those states is Blue and that is an important economic factor. GNP figures are only available at a state level but Blue states are still producing most of America's GNP. When I have mentioned this fact to some people the retort is how are blue state people going to eat. The answer obviously is there are lots of places in the world willing to import food to blue states.

So, Red Americans should live under the political control of the Blues who live in pockets like NYC. How about this idea, NYC goes its own way?

"there are lots of places in the world willing to import food to blue states." remarkably predictable as an answer.

How many of the 22+million illegal immigrants live in those states? How many additional members of Congress do they have as a result and for how many years? (Based on the basic math that's enough people to account for 30 seats in the House) Why should any American citizen want to put up with that disparate impact on representation any longer?
See the Yale study updating the illegal immigrant numbers here:
https://insights.som.yale.e...

Fred - The issue is NOT how many illegal immigrants are living here, it is how many vote. So far the studies have indicated only a handful.

You are wrong. See the Constitution, its amemendments and the 1911 House Reapportionment Act:
"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, ..."

http://history.house.gov/In...
Development/Proportional-Representation/

http://history.house.gov/Hi...

Would it be canny of the Trump White House to leak that Trump is considering withdrawing Kavanaugh, to be replaced by Amy Coney Barrett?

A funny way to shut all the monkey business down would be to nominate Merrick Garland, whom I believe Orin Hatch approved of. Once upon a time.

At least the GOP mainly ignored Garland and didn't repeatedly try to besmirch his character with vile and false accusations.

It was still stupid. they could have voted him down.

My thoughts exactly :)

"Why should conservative/deplorables turn out to vote for weaklings..." spot on sir. It is one reason Flake and Corker are retiring, right along with Paul Ryan. In addition the white male Democrat is going to be an endangered species. (It isn't helping the image of white female democrats either.) Black male democrat turnout isn't going to be any higher because to the incumbant democrats 'white women come first' is the latest democratic party objective. Senate Republicans don't need to wait any longer on a vote on Kavenaugh for the voting pattern shift in the mid-terms to happen but the longer they do your prediction of "deplorables" viewing incumbant Republicans as weak and not to be voted for is going to bear more weight.

Col. Lang,

Sen. Chuck Grassley in trying to be open and run a "fair" hearing has instead created a circus. Exactly what the NeverTrump media want.

Both Chrstine Blasey and Debbie Ramirez have provided names of corroborators to the assault, who have all denied any knowledge. Sen. Feinstein sat on Blasey's letter for 2 months and did nothing until the vote was scheduled. As you rightly point out this is just drive-by-shooting by the Democrats and their allies in the media to create the necessary hysteria. Their hope is that this will wake up their supporters to turn out and vote for their candidates in the mid-term.

We'll see if Grassley and McConnell schedule votes this week.

Of course women can be just as cruel, heartless and power hungry as men. It is rather ironic that the Dems are relying on the attitudes about women 100 years ago... that women are the fairer and gentler sex and need to treated with kid gloves. Oh, and they are more moral too! Once upon a time feminism was about aiming for "equality" but it has devolved into victimhood and power games. This is why the young Youtubers are increasingly adopting anti-feminist rhetoric (anti this current sick wave of toxic pseudo-feminism). It has been surprising to see how many young women (20's and 30's) have become ex-feminists.

This is the Democrat party fighting for its life. If it loses this, then the walls will tumble in. They went from a shoe in candidate to the implosion of their party inside of 24 months.

Oh the poor babies! I'm sure such party changes have never happened in history before (/snark). The difference this time is the losers are acting like children having a tantrum because their mommy won't buy them the toy they want. And the Republicans don't know how to handle the tantrums.

Fighting for it's life? ROTFL... That's basically similar to saying a corporation is a person. It's the party leaders that are fighting to maintain their power - their jobs and influential roles. They are fighting for gov't power, dominance and control for their donors and fellow elites just like the Republicans are. They still have lots of it, but are not satisfied and are willing to go to disgusting lengths to maintain and increase it. At least on the Republican side there is Trump and Trump supporting candidates to give a voice to the conservative/libertarian/independent opposition to the establishment RINOs. There is a civil war going on within the Republican party.

This behavior as poor losers, their increasing nastiness and obvious authoritarian ways have triggered huge numbers of people away from the Democrat party. I have been following trends on YouTube, which is where all the interesting political trends are playing out these days IMO. I have been listening to #Walkaway stories. The MSM does not want to talk about these, and has been trying to actively suppress the info. Facebook "conveniently" banned the gay leader of the #walkaway movement for a nothing-burger recently, for a month, just before their rally in DC end of October. I think some conservative groups such as Turning Point USA are having rallies at that time as well. Alex Jones is planning on reporting on it all. I'm sure Antifa won't be able to resist. That's good news because they simply trigger more people to walk away. Should be really entertaining.

What's fascinating to me is that they aren't leaving over policy or political platform issues as has been typical of politics in the past. They are leaving because of the nastiness, the intolerance of any dissent from the narrative (authoritarian/totalitarian), and the over the top propaganda/lying. Some are becoming independents that will be voting Republican for the time being because of their current disgust with the Dems but have not joined the other tribe. However many have become conservatives and they have been welcomed with open arms. Especially the black, Hispanic and gay #walkaway folks who are all pleasantly surprised by that. There are even a few Republicans in the movement who are walking away from their party to being an independent voter while maintaining an identity as a conservative.

The Walkaway movement is only one of several movements taking place on YouTube encouraging independent thinking and analysis versus unquestioning submissive loyalty to a power hungry political party. It is overall a right leaning trend which is a reaction to the cultural over reach of the left. There is a New Right emerging culturally. They are young, hip, witty, insightful, and real (as opposed to news anchors on MSM). They are not at all like the old school Repubs. They use humor and memes to mock which is very effective. So of course, the MSM is starting to write hit pieces about these influential YouTubers. The elites want the masses controlled, not laughing at them and thinking for themselves.

These young smart Youtubers give me hope and often make me laugh. Much more fun and enlightening than MSM propaganda.

They will re-emerge under the wing of Obama's OFA: Oppressed Forever by America; the victim party with the politics of resentment.

(PL: If this is too personal, just don't publish it.)

The views of an elite woman on lying:
I can give personal testimony as to how some elite women view lying.
In the early 1980s I accused my then wife of lying to me.
She declined to answer.
However, several days later she placed on our coffee table a copy of the book
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by philosophy professor Sissela Bok, wife of Derek Bok, then president of Harvard.

My reading of that book was that it excused lying in many cases.
Leaving aside my views, here is an extract (with some added emphasis) from a review of the book:

The lies of people who do not hold special positions of power, trust, or responsibility in society [earlier she had discussed lies of the leaders of society] are judged less stringently by Mrs. Bok.
At the least, she tends more often to regard such lies as excusable or defensible.
Thus, in this book against lying, lying appears to be more excusable for, among others, members of unpopular religious or racial or sexual groups who feel obliged to “pass in order to avoid persecution.”
Or again, lying is defensible for “a couple driven to seek divorce in society where it can be granted only for adultery”; here, a lie may plausibly seem “a small price to pay in order to achieve release from their marriage and the freedom to marry again.”
Similarly, a draftee during the Vietnam war may be more readily excused for having lied because of what the country’s policies forced him to do.
In such cases,
Mrs. Bok cites approvingly the contention that
“the system is much less excusable than
the individual deceit which forms a part of it.”

Apropos of "Dr. Ford" and her story about Judge Kavenaugh, I found this story about justice gone rogue up in Maine.
https://bangordailynews.com...

Yes, women can lie and the "Qui Bono" question should always be considered whenever an accusation is leveled in situations involving personal animus.

Thanks

If Kavanaugh either pulls out or is not confirmed (unlikely) then the standard script of the wronged woman from long ago will be seen as a successful ploy and used again and again like a story from Indonesian puppet theater.

If so, the 'progressive' Democrat element will celebrate but it will never occur to them that the event has proved nothing to 95% of the population other than the political process is corrupted and cannot be trusted. Another brick in the wall.

Ledell (below) says "There sure is a lot of anger out there" Out where? Most of it is effluvia from the toxic box and social media. .

1. Proverbs 30:33 King James Version (KJV): [As] the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.

"Both the left and the right consider themselves aggrieved and thus justified in their anger."

The Grievance Cascade
1. f*ck off,
2. f*ck up,
3. f*ck over, then
4. feel wronged

1. is the critical step.

The grievances on parade are mostly 1. rationalization (see cascade) or 2.expectations in need of revision.

Apparently it is more titillating to cry havoc etc. than to cry bullshit and turn the TEEVEE off..

Are you familiar with the story of Athalia? 2 Kings 11
For a really splendid musical depiction of (parts of) the life of Athalia, watch the fine McCreesh-conducted version of Handel's Athalia:https://youtu.be/LLV0wBmFrH... (That video is set to start at the musical and dramatic climax, where Athalia asks to see the boy king, Joas, who was hidden from her lethal hand, and gets her comeuppance, i.e., at time 1:42:28.)
For the libretto, click here. The scene above is Act 3, Scene 4.

For another real musical highlight, start it playing at 50m (50:00), for the Hallelujah that ends Act 1, then hang in there for the overture and magnificent chorus that opens Act 2.

For the same token, that would imply that the guiding light of at least some women when dealing with men would be to remember Jack The Ripper....

What is it that Nietzsche said?

"From the very first, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, inimical to woman than truth.." (BGE §232) seems appropriate here.

Nietzsche's view of women is perhaps most generously described as 'old fashioned', though he was right to identify femininity as the eternal source of female power. Nietzsche saw a trade off of femininity in exchange for emancipation. But instead it appears that 21st century sexual politics now affords women the best of all worlds. She may now participate as an equal in dorm party drinking games with men. And yet she remains so vulnerable that 35 years later an alleged incident involving the exposure of a (presumably flaccid) male member - as a result of such activities - seemingly merits serious investigation as an 'assault'. Germain Greer was wrong too - it is the male that has been emasculated.

"We have art in order not to die of the truth"...

"You go to women? Do not forget your whip!"

"Politics is the field of work for certain mediocre brains"...

"Woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant ......"

Note his recurrent themes and pet pejoratives.

"Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him, including moments of shortsightedness that left him nearly blind, migraine headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical." @WIKI

I imagine that a lot of Democrats secretly wish to be done with this mess lest
the fingers start pointing to themselves. A spate of sexual/financial accusations
against them just might restore some sanity. But of course I daydream, since we all know that our elected officials are pure as the driven snow.

Bill Clinton and Keith Ellison are 2 Dems that have had credible accusations from women. What's happening with those? Crickets, except for Fox News and alternative media. Dem women seem not to care about women who've been sexually harassed when defending their own tribe.

I suggest that each of you ask every woman you know if she has ever been sexually assaulted...by HER definition. You might be surprised. Start with your daughters.

What would that prove?

FWIW, in college my wife was the victim of a sexual assault from a drunken classmate, a muscular member of the wrestling team, which she managed to fight off, though not without him almost doing what he had in mind (I'll spare you the details). At her 35th college reunion, which we both attended, that former classmate shamefacedly came up to her and tried to apologize for what he'd done back then, saying that after graduating he realized that he was an alcoholic. Her response was reserved but cool, and I didn't quite get what had just gone on there until she filled me in. She'd never mentioned the incident to me before. She's a strong woman; call her "poor baby" at your peril.

Do women lie? Of course they do; they're human beings; we all lie. Do they lie about being sexually assaulted? In those few cases where the goal is extortion or where the accuser is just nuts, yes. Otherwise what's the point, given what is, to this day, the typically quite negative upshot for the accuser of making such an accusation?

Why, you ask, did she not report this assault at the time? See the last sentence of the previous paragraph, plus there's the sense of shame and shock that one can feel in the wake of such an assault and the resulting desire to just escape from it and go on with one's life.

You say that her experience is the outlier here? Not by the testimony of many of the women she knows quite well.

Women often lie about men because they are angry at them or resentful of rejection or some other reason. "those few?" Surely you jest . It happens a lot.

I'll take your word for this but still find it hard to believe that, leaving outright extortionists and nuts aside, that many women are that reckless with their own well-being as to make false accusations of sexual assault when they know the grief of several sorts that almost certainly lies in wait for them.

You're right that most women wouldn't do that. Which proves nothing. A little research on the psychology of women who have made false accusations might help you understand motives.

Also note how carefully constructed these accusations are. Basically the women were already drunk and at a high school or college party many years ago. Both have admitted that they were drunk and unsure of what had happened. We have here "recovered memories" which are always suspect. No one actually accused him of rape, only of questionable adolescent sexual exploration. The incidents described by these women have undoubtedly happened to many drunk young women at high school or college parties. It's one of the ways adolescents learn about their sexuality.

As a woman who has been inappropriately grabbed by few men in my lifetime and almost raped once, I can tell you that you DON'T FORGET or have fuzzy memories of such incidents. I don't remember the names, because I didn't always know them, but I can still describe each experience in some detail (and I have a generally bad memory for past personal events). I also immediately discussed all of them with my close friends or really anyone who wanted to listen. That's how I was able to process those events and put them in context. Women often do repress memories when they are sexually abused by a trusted family member or clergy because of the inner emotional conflict. But this does not apply to casual acquaintances.

I can easily imagine a highly politically oriented woman (esp the 1st accuser who clearly has her own emotionally troubled past), who genuinely fears a supreme court appointment, would be willing to be a "soldier" for the movement. The inevitable book deal will financially compensate for their initial public discomfort. And among their fellow party members they get to be heroines!

"by her definition" - exactly! .....And that definition is as changeable as the wind. I am 68 years young and on reflection even my occasional innocent amourous behaviour, when unmarried, is quite capable of being construed as sexual assault if taken out of context. Even something as simple as an arm around the shoulders and a peck on the cheek. All men know what I am talking about; ask your sons.

This leads into my hypothesis of male/female social evolution.
Waaaaaay back when men went out to hunt, women had to say back in the cave.
They traded sex for food for themselves and their children.
A female society evolved in the caves where women had to simultaneously help each other to survive and scheme against each other for male favor.
Thus today's society where women usually have closer friends than men,
but will viciously backbite each other .

Men - they're still thinking about sex 25 hours a day and 17 year olds -"thinking with their dick" - are capable of really stupid behavior.